1. Decide on the focus of your 360° review
Each review cycle should serve a clear purpose to ensure feedback is meaningful and actionable. HR managers and team leads should define specific competencies, behaviors, or goals relevant to the employee’s role and organizational objectives — and these should guide the performance review and the employee’s development plans.
For instance, a probation period review may focus on assessing how well the employee is ramping up in their new role and discussing what they need to integrate and develop.
However, a senior manager’s mid-year review would likely look very different, assessing strategic decision-making and leadership competencies.
2. Choose your review recurrence
A well-timed review cadence ensures ongoing development without overwhelming employees. According to our Workforce Trends Report, roughly four in five employees agree that performance reviews are helpful — and many want them to happen more often. While quarterly or biannual reviews are common, consider your company’s needs.
Frequent check-ins help maintain momentum and give more opportunities to readjust personal development plans, while annual reviews may suit organizations with particularly stable roles and responsibilities.
3. Determine review participants
As mentioned, 360° review reviews traditionally involve a:
- Self-assessment — The subject of the review provides feedback on their own perceived performance.
- Manager assessment — The reviewee’s direct supervisor can provide a clear view of their performance based on regular 1:1 check-ins and ongoing monitoring.
- Peers and direct reports — People who work with the employee should assess their teamwork skills and leadership abilities since they’re often the closest to their work.
- Customers and clients — Customers and clients can provide an external view of the work the reviewee delivers.
You’ll need to carefully consider whose feedback will make the most impact and be most relevant for the employee being reviewed.
Ask yourself these questions to get more clarity about who should take part:
- Which stakeholders and teammates do employees at this level tend to interact with most?
- Who can best address the development and growth opportunities needed at this level?
- What key projects or initiatives did the reviewee recently take part in? Who worked with them?
4. Set a timeline for providing feedback
Establish a structured timeline to prevent delays and ensure thorough, thoughtful feedback.
A common practice is to allocate one to two weeks for collecting responses, allowing participants time to reflect and provide detailed input.
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5. Draft review questions
Ensure every team member has relevant data to answer the questions meaningfully.
For example, if asking: “What is the most important development goal [x employee] should work on?” make sure respondents have access to your organization’s competency frameworks. That way, they’ll be able to assess team members fairly based on established competencies that are used for all employees in the same or similar roles.
Here are a few example questions for 360° reviews:
- What is this employee doing well that they should continue doing?
- What is the most important development goal they should work on?
- What support do they need to move forward on individual development goals?
- What support could they use to develop further in their role?
- How are they showcasing the company’s value of listening to and respecting each other?
- What are the three biggest challenges they’re currently facing?
You should also include a few of these role-specific questions and define which ones are relevant to each perspective:
- For peers — Can you provide examples of situations in which this employee demonstrated strong communication skills? Are there areas where their communication could be improved?
- For managers — Can you share instances where this employee made decisions that positively impacted team or organizational outcomes?
- For direct reports — How well does your manager communicate expectations, provide feedback, and keep you informed about team priorities?
- For project stakeholders — Can you provide examples of specific tasks or deliverables this employee completed that positively impacted the project’s success?
💡 Best practice: Keep reviews 15-20 questions max to prevent fatigue.
⭐ Make feedback actionable & constructive
Use our free 360° review template and empower everyone at your workplace to give more positive, insightful input that moves your organization forward.
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6. Invite participants & communicate guidelines
Create a centralized feedback form for all reviewers so you don’t risk any assessments falling through the cracks.
To encourage meaningful participation, reinforce the importance of constructive feedback, and consider sharing the guidelines below:
- Be frank but empathetic, focusing on strengths to keep feedback constructive.
- Ensure that constructive feedback is actionable, providing one or two specific steps the employee can take to improve.
- Don’t overwhelm them with too much information. Focus on key points and illustrate your evaluation with concrete examples.
- No feedback should be a surprise for the reviewee. In a culture of transparency and continuous growth, managers and supervisors should be making use of 1:1 meetings and informal check-ins to keep team members up to date on their progress, performance, and development.
💡 Looking to improve your entire performance management cycle?
Our free, downloadable 1:1 meetings template is the perfect resource to make your check-ins more productive and actionable.
7. Interpret results
This is arguably the most intimidating part for managers, but it doesn’t have to be. Platforms like Leapsome leverage AI to summarize review data for you — and even build out the next steps based on feedback.
When you’re analyzing the results, make sure you keep these practices in mind:
- Focus on patterns and themes — Identify strengths and areas for improvement across multiple reviews to paint a more holistic picture of the feedback.
- Consider the source — Remember that leaders, project stakeholders, and direct reports may have very different perspectives and frames of reference than the reviewee when delivering their feedback.
- Identify specific areas for development — These should be easy to translate into action plans so that managers and direct reports can come up with development goals during the review meeting.
8. Set up a review meeting
The manager and reviewee should now schedule a meeting to discuss the feedback. The focus on development should be top of mind — and that should also include reinforcing strengths the reviewee already has. Unlike traditional performance reviews, modern 360° reviews are about growing together and focusing on the future.
Follow this meeting agenda template if it’s your first time going through review results with a direct report:
- Review feedback together — Explain the data and highlight recurring themes and patterns.
- Collaboratively identify strengths and areas for development — Prioritize focus areas based on importance, potential impact, and alignment with current company and team goals.
- Create a development plan — Determine strategies and action steps for achieving growth objectives and set SMART goals for improvement.
- Determine next steps — Agree on what to discuss in a follow-up meeting and how the employee will self-monitor progress.
💡 Interested in learning more about feedback and reviews?
We’ve got you covered: Check out our free template with best-practice questions for performance reviews — including specific questions for 360° and leadership reviews — and 25 smart questions to ask in performance reviews.
And how about offering your employees even more support when it’s time for their 360° performance review? See our guide and infographic on how to write a self-assessment for your next performance review. 😉
Follow-up best practices for 360° performance appraisals
Because feedback comes from multiple perspectives, a 360° review gives you a more complete view and helps you spot discrepancies, patterns, and areas to improve. But to get the most value out of the process, make it easy for all the stakeholders involved and track its impact, adjusting when it doesn’t fit everyone’s needs.
Simplify 360° feedback for managers
Many organizational leaders expect managers to champion their feedback culture, yet they don’t set them up for success. Recent Gallup data shows that only 48% of managers agree they have the skills and training they need to excel in their work.
Many managers need more clarity around performance appraisals and professional development, which companies can provide by:
- Setting up clear guidelines and instructions for 360° evaluations — Outline the purpose behind this process and train managers on how to provide actionable feedback. Ensure instructions can be easily shared and accessed by all participants.
- Choosing an easy-to-use feedback platform — A customizable yet user-friendly platform like Leapsome Reviews enables you to create reusable review templates and automate all future 360° review feedback cycles.
- Offer training and mentorship — Give new managers opportunities to shadow team leads and department heads who have a great track record of leading performance reviews.
Monitor progress with goals & development plans
One of the best ways to empower team members to track their progress is to have direct reports schedule weekly or biweekly check-ins and 1:1 meetings with their manager. While it’s great to keep these meeting agendas flexible, we suggest you:
- Review action steps outlined in development plans — Identify any barriers or challenges, and brainstorm solutions for moving forward.
- Adjust goals as needed — It’s important to be flexible and willing to tweak team members’ objectives when priorities shift or circumstances change.
- Celebrate milestones — Managers should recognize completed goals and great work by using a tool like Leapsome Instant Feedback to share public praise.
Run impactful 360° performance reviews with Leapsome
If your employees are feeling disillusioned with the traditional review process, implementing 360° performance evaluations is a great way to bring them more balance, fairness, and diverse input.
However, if you want to truly transform your feedback culture, you need a platform like Leapsome. With our Reviews tool, you’ll have access to best-practice templates that make it easy to set up and automate your 360° review cycle. Managers and HR professionals can also track employee performance across specific skills and competencies with our built-in development matrix.
Leapsome Reviews is also powered by AI, which means you can quickly transform evaluation notes into unbiased comments and action-oriented suggestions and learn to give better feedback in the process.
Your people deserve well-rounded performance reviews that help them grow as professionals — and Leapsome can help deliver them with ease.
⭐ Create a five-star review experience
Ready to make your evaluations fairer and more development-focused? We have the templates, questions, automations, and analytics to get you there.
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